


Silk Rain

by orphan_account



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, Why Douglas doesn't drink, how Douglas left Air England
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Douglas hates silk because it reminds him of how he was fired from Air England.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>He’d had a total of seven kimonos stitched to the inside of his coat and he was sweltering. But then he’d bent down to get something from his suitcase and his coat popped open with a snap, the colorful kimonos sliding out of his coat with silky sighs to lay crumpled on the floor like a magic trick gone wrong, a trail of silk that led to a very guilty, and very fired pilot. Hong Kong customs had not been happy.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Silk Rain

Douglas hates the sound of silk. It sets his teeth on edge and reminds him of the noise a knife makes as it’s drawn and then plunged into flesh.

He’s in Japan, hunting the markets for a present for his daughter.

“What about these, Douglas?” Arthur bends down, pointing at a rack of child-sized kimonos that would fit Rebecca perfectly. He can imagine her in the beautiful pink one, she would look adorable. But he can’t stand the sound of silk.

When Helena found out he didn’t like silk, she agreed to stop wearing it. He would miss the sight of her in a certain pair of lingerie though.

The day Douglas was caught for smuggling is carved into his mind. He’d been getting too cocky. He thought he was invincible, and he was, but it had to come to an end. He was smuggling too much, the other day he’d taken over a whole china elephant. The problem was he’d finish a job, get drunk with triumph and whiskey, brag about it, and end up taking on a job that was even riskier than the last.

So, he thought, it was inevitable the day he got caught. He’d had a total of seven kimonos stitched to the inside of his coat and he was sweltering. But then he’d bent down to get something from his suitcase and his coat popped open with a snap, the colorful kimonos sliding out of his coat with silky sighs to lay crumpled on the floor like a magic trick gone wrong, a trail of silk that led to a very guilty, and very fired pilot. Hong Kong customs had not been happy.

“I don’t think she’ll like it,” Douglas tells Arthur, who looks disappointed. Arthur likes Rebecca, even though he’s only met her once when Douglas flew her to Manchester for her birthday. Rebecca spent the whole time tormenting Arthur, who of course, didn’t notice.

They continue to look around. Carolyn and Martin are still back at the hotel. Carolyn had some business to do and wanted Arthur out of the way, and Martin had an upset stomach from last night’s sushi and hadn’t felt like leaving his room. So it had fallen to Douglas to look after Arthur.

“There are a _lot_ of kimonos here, aren’t there?” Arthur says after a while.

“Yes, Arthur, there are,” Douglas says wearily. He closes his eyes and lets out his breath, frustrated. The sight of them is giving him a headache and he wonders if he should give up and go back to the hotel room. He considers a stall nearby where people are sitting and drinking sake and he makes himself look away. He didn’t drink anymore.

When he’d told Helena the news, he’d been very drunk. So it was no surprise when she slapped him and ran out of the house with Rebecca in tow, telling him to call them after he’d sobered up.

That was another thing he’d remember very clearly. The look his daughter had given him before the door had closed.

He’d woken up with a splitting hangover and he’d immediately called his mother-in-law’s house, only to have his the woman herself pick up and have her tell him coldly that Helena wouldn’t be coming home until late that night.

When she did come back, she barely spoke with him for a long time. He told her that he was already looking for a new job, that this was a temporary thing. His smuggling days were over.

Easier said than done. Jobs were scarce for a pilot with a history of smuggling, and the reference that his old boss had given out told other airline companies that he had a disregard for flight regulations, which, especially in these times, was enough for a company to shut their doors in his face without even an interview.

It was the look in Rebecca’s eyes that did it. She looked at him like he was a stranger sometimes. He wasn’t perfect in her eyes anymore and he felt ashamed every time he was with her. After another failed interview, he’d gone to the pub, and he hadn’t come home until Helena and Rebecca were asleep.

A cold dinner was laid out for him on the table.

Helena and Rebecca were very quiet sleepers, and he’d remembered standing in the house unable to feel their presence at all. He had felt like he was the only one there, and if he had never come back from the pub, no one would look for him. The dinner had looked like it had been cooked ages ago and it had been ages since that steam had risen from its skin. It had since become a fixture and an extension of the familiar checkered tablecloth. He hadn’t been able to eat it.

The third time he came back late from the pub, he’d been so drunk he could barely stand, but he’d still been able to tell this time that the feeling of loneliness he’d felt was real. He hadn’t even needed to check the note on the fridge. Helena and Rebecca had gone to stay at his mother-in-law’s again.

That sense of loneliness had become something he found in his house everyday, now that Helena was gone. He thought it would get better with time, but it wasn’t.

The fourth time it happened, Rebecca followed him to the pub.

Douglas opens his eyes, only to find that Arthur is gone. He looks around and sees him talking to a man who seems to be selling raw silk.

“It’s true!” the man is saying adamantly in heavily accented English.

“ _Worms_ can’t make _silk_ ,” Arthur says. Douglas groans to himself.

“I can show you,” the man says to Arthur, eager to prove Arthur wrong. Douglas knows the feeling. When he had first met Arthur, he had delighted in proving Arthur wrong. The problem was it was just too easy.

“All right!” Arthur says cheerfully and follows the man.

Douglas puts a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, stopping him. “Weren’t you supposed to help me look for a gift for Rebecca?” he hisses.

Arthur’s face loses all amusement in a way that is almost scary. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch up,” he says gravely. Then his face brightens up so quickly that Douglas almost recoils. “Oh, that’s brilliant, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to say that, like they do in movies.”

If Douglas was ever going to leave Arthur Shappey alone in a large foreign city, he’s not going to now after hearing that. “Yes, but _Arthur_ , in movies they never catch up. They get dragged away by zombies or the secret police and no one hears about them ever again. I am _not_ letting you follow a man to see his worms by yourself.”

Arthur doesn’t look the least bit perturbed. “Then come with me, Douglas! Who knew worms made silk? I thought it was just silk! _Wow_. If I’d known about this earlier, I’d be really careful about stepping on them, you know?”

Arthur goes to follow the man, and Douglas has no choice but to go after him.

The day Rebecca had followed him to the pub was the last time he ever touched a drop of alcohol. He hadn’t had a clue how Rebecca had managed to get away from Helena. The pub itself was not far from their house, and she’d probably seen it loads of times coming home from school. He’d been into his second pint when he’d heard her voice.

“Sorry, junior, you’re too young. Run along to your mommy and daddy now,” the pub owner had said.

“I’m here to take my daddy home!” Rebecca had replied loudly, and he’d recognize her voice anywhere, even if he was drunk. She was trying to make her voice deeper because she thought it sounded more grown-up and would make people listen to her. And even though she was being obstructed from view by the pub owner, he knew she would be standing there with her hands on her hips, drawn to her full height, a steely look in her eight-year-old eyes.

“Rebecca!” he’d exclaimed, rushing towards her.

“This isn’t a place you bring your daughter, Douglas,” the pub owner said coldly.

“Yes, I know,” Douglas said, handing him money to pay for his drinks and then taking Rebecca outside.

“What were you doing?” he said angrily.

She stamped her foot. “You are a very bad daddy! Come home right now! You stink!”

When people ask Douglas why he doesn’t drink, he tells him he’s not willing to risk the ire of a very scary young lady. The memory of it is enough to let him pass by the sake without even a twinge of regret.

He and Arthur follow the man into his shop, where there are swathes of silk laid out on display. If fabric and thread could express any kind of emotion, Douglas feels that these deceptively lustrous articles are mocking him. It seems impossible, but a slight wind is breezing through the shop, making the silk rub against itself resulting in those silky sighs that he hates so much. His hands and teeth clench tightly. He’s relieved when they go into the next room and the sound of silk disappears.

Instead it sounds like rain.

Arthur’s mouth is a perfect O as he takes in the rows of silk worms. Even in this small room, there must be thousands of them chewing on their leaves. That’s what is making the rain noise. The worms themselves are ugly, writhing and grey. It is hard to believe that these tiny things make that expensive, lustrous cloth that has been tormenting Douglas. The silk seller views their astonishment with a satisfied look on his face.

When Douglas had sobered up for good with the help of his daughter, he’d taken the interview with MJN Air and he remembered being astonished at how alike Carolyn was to Rebecca. Of course, Carolyn was much, much more devious than he hoped Rebecca would ever be. It was the longest interview Douglas had ever had, but it was the only one he’d gotten where they’d at least begun to talk about his salary. The other airlines had barely given him a second look.

It had been raining on that day too and the sound of it was like silk worms feasting.

He feels faint with relief, there in that room surrounded by worms. Already, the memory of the silky sighs of those seven kimonos is fading from his memory to be replaced with the sound of heavy rain, thousands of silk worms eating and eating.

Silk is no longer a reminder of his fall from Air England and the shame in his daughter’s eyes. He can make it, instead, a reminder of that day he and Carolyn spent an hour and a half sizing each other up until she grudgingly gave him the salary to the job he would learn to love.

He’d called Helena right after he’d got the job and she’d been overjoyed. “Now I can call you Captain again,” she’d said slyly, reminding him of some very memorable nights. Still disappointed about being made First Officer, Douglas hadn’t contradicted her.

“I couldn’t have done it without you, my dear,” he had said to Rebecca after picking her up from her dance class and telling her the good news. She hugged him tightly and told him that this meant he had to buy her a pony.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the man is saying over the sound of the worms. “We call it the Silk Rain.”

“It’s brilliant! Thanks!” Arthur says enthusiastically. “I’m going to get a kimono for Mum. Wait ‘til I tell her what it’s _made of_.” He dashes out of the room immediately, as if worried that if he waits too long, he would forget his very important mission. Douglas runs after him, muttering about how he isn’t paid nearly enough for this.

Douglas refuses to help Arthur pick out a kimono for Carolyn, because even the mental image of Carolyn in one of these dresses is enough to give Douglas a newfound fear of silk. But he ends up buying two kimonos for his daughter.

And this time he doesn’t sew them to the inside of his coat.


End file.
